I'm keen to know how you keep your post-sail beer cold when your camping at your favourite remote (unpowered) australian windsurfing locations..

Fess up.

2 best options I have see are obviouslly the deep cycle battery and the engel. another is one of those 'proper' eskis (not the kmart jobs but the ones fisherman use.) filled with block ice in the bottom (3 inches or so) then beer and normal bag ice.

I rekon if you could somehow come up with a way of drilling an ice block like a massive stubbie sized egg carton you would be onto a winner!

The cheap little thermoelectric fridges are rubbish, I've had two of them and neither of them worked all that well. Neither of them were a name brand though, so your mileage may vary. Maybe those engel/waeco ones work properly?

Some people dig a hole when they get to their spot, line it with foam then put their esky in that, loads of ice inside and it will last for a week... only open the lid once a day and you're OK.

cup holders near the air con. derr

nebbian said...

The cheap little thermoelectric fridges are rubbish, I've had two of them and neither of them worked all that well. Neither of them were a name brand though, so your mileage may vary. Maybe those engel/waeco ones work properly?

yeah, when it come to car fridges there is only one type worth using and that is the (expensive) compressor fridges. I once had a electronics guy point out that those cheap and nasty things are good for keeping the 6 pack cold between your house and the party, but thats about it.

Yep, the decent cool box and block ice that you make in your freezer before you go.

You can make them up pretty cheap, if you know a mate who can glass them up

Just need 50mm thick foam blocks, made into a box. Glass it up inside and out and use some hinges to hold the lid on. Put thin foam rubber seal around the lid and voila, magic ice box

have a look here
http://www.sportsfish.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30137
this guys is a bit over the top for what you want, but you get the idea.

if you don't want to fork out for an engel, go to BOC and buy some dry ice

Leech,

You must use a compressor based fridge (Engel or Waeco) with a deep cycle battery. Don't even think about a thermolectric. They use the same amount of power, and provide less than 10% of the cooling if you are lucky. If you are not sure which is which, look at the price tag. Compressor fridges are about $1000, the thermolectrics are given away free in your favourite cereal box.

I have the Waeco 50 litre, and it goes down to -20 C without any trouble. The Engel will do just as good a job.

This is the deep cycle battery that you want:
http://www.batteriesplus.com.au/pd/584/239/trojan-scs225/

This is the charger you want:
www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=MB3612&CATID=27&keywords=&SPECIAL=&form=CAT&ProdCodeOnly=&Keyword1=&Keyword2=&pageNumber=&priceMin=&priceMax=&SUBCATID=647

As long as you keep your fridge in the shade, it will do a long weekend easily. The maths works out like this.....

Battery is rated at 130 amp hours. Fridge draws 4 amps, but only runs about 1/4 to 1/3 of the time, therefore using an average of 1 to 1.33 amps. Three days will therefore use between 72 and 96 amp hours.

MikeyS is spot on...the 80W solar panel is exactly what you need if you want to run the fridge for an extended period without any mains power. An 80W panel usually ends up giving about an average of 4 amps output. Working on 8 hours of good sunlight a day, this exactly equals the fridges requirements. Presuming you started out with a fully charged battery then a few clouds will not worry you.

Nothing like having ice cold beer (and butter, orange juice, milk, tim tams, tinned fruit, cream, etc.) when camping.

I've have it wired up with a 240ac-12dc switch mode power supply so it charges when we are at a powered site, and have also run an extra cable from my car battery to the trailer so it charges while we are driving.

Regards,
Harrow.

P.S. Of course the easy way is a decent fishermans cool box and a bucket load of ice, which also works ok for several days.

grumplestiltskin said...

Yep, the decent cool box and block ice that you make in your freezer before you go.

You can make them up pretty cheap, if you know a mate who can glass them up

...

My mate doesn't need any new projects. He's got a board to make!

While we're on the topic of fridges, as Harrow says, keep the fridge in the shade, but it also helps to make sure the fridge is well insulated. The basic insulation around an Engel is pretty crap- just hold your hand against the outside of the fridge when it's on- it feels cold. Even with the transit bag which improves the insulation somewhat, you can still feel the cold on the outside of the bag. I've inserted a $10 closed cell foam sleeping mat inside the cover of my fridge and it makes quite a difference. I think the insulation on a Waeco is a bit better, but in any event, the less heat transfer across the walls of the fridge, the lower the power consumption.

Hey Harrow. How can you tell that this is a windsurfing website, and not a camping/fishing/4wding website? Cos we're not carrying on like pork chops about whether Waeco is better than Engel blah blah blah!

Having travelled north for years I have settled on the 3 way fridge option this enables u to run the fridge on the drive up ,once at camp set up in the shade on a level surface and run on gas .I like the silence when i camp and saves on space and weight for genset and fuel .I also run my gas stove and gas light all on 1 9KG bottle of gas usually lasts 14 days or more and i carry a smaller bottle in case .Sit back after a hard days sailing /fishing /surfing ICE COLD BEER is there anything better

save your money moby and go the gas option i stuffed around with dual batteries and gensets for years go the gas

A few years ago I used the dry ice and two esky's. Keep one esky for the dry ice and plastic bottles of water that freeze solid. You then use the frozen water bottles as the cooling source in the other esky.
The dry ice lasted around 2 weeks as we didn't need to be opening that esky as often as the 2nd one.
Dry ice will destroy the flavour of fresh/ unsealed food so it's another good idea to keep the food separate.

I used my Chescold(spelling) three way fridge for years on my surf trips in the NW. They work great. I ran from a 9kg bottle used for cooking as well. I can vouch that it would last 2 week(best was 19days). Quite often i had to turn the fridge down as it kept freezing beer.

Only down side is that they are bulky to carry.

My chescold has died several times. the heat exchange element has been replaced three times. It is now sitting in my work work shop needing another element.


They are a solid unit other wise made of high of high impact PVC. mine is the 66l green one

Make sure you throw in some ginger beers for me Leech

hold your board. slalom fin and all approx 1m above said drying sail and instruct afore mention beer drinker that everyone else gets a beer and no sails get hurt...